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Reproduction – breed more productive animals

Tips and resources to maximise your herd’s reproductive performance.
Mating and calving book
  • Kelvin Nicholson

    Repro advice from farmers

    Hear from farmers with impressive repro results on practical ways to improve your herd's performance.

  • Cows on grass

    Body Condition Score at mating and its impact on reproduction

    Body condition score (BCS) is a measure of a cow’s fat reserves and is a good indicator of energy balance.

  • Cow

    National reproduction results

    It can be easy to get caught up in analysing your own results but it is good to know how others are doing to get a true gauge of performance.

  • Wairarapa Farm Image

    Fertility vs Reproduction

    There are a couple of terms that often cause confusion in the dairy industry - Fertility and Reproduction. These two terms are often used interchangeably as if they have the same meaning, however that is not the case.

  • Reproduction

    The value of reproduction in dairy farming

    In any business, it can be difficult knowing where to invest so that you will get the most bang for your buck.

  • Farmer looking into distance

    Eight key areas of farm management

    Assess how your farm is performing by measuring how you’re going in eight key management areas.

  • AB - AB technician service

    Why you should consider going all AB

    Switch to all artificial breeding (AB) for the whole mating period and get the similar results for less.

  • Loading straws

    Reproductive performance of all AB herds

    What can we see from the 2016 to 2018 spring mating data*, between 7% and 11% of all herds nationally doing all AB?

  • MINDA Pro

    Comparing apples with elephants – the issue with comparing empty rates

    When comparing your herd’s reproductive performance across years, or with your neighbour, you need to compare apples with apples.

  • Crossbred herd calves

    What's up with my empty rate?

    Every year once the pregnancy test results are in we often hear “empty rates are up this year” and “empty rates are way higher than they used to be”. The question is – are these statements true?

  • Kiwicross herd grazing

    Once-a-day milking and reproduction

    Herds milked once-a-day (OAD) for the whole season tend to have better reproductive performance than herds milked twice-a-day (TAD) for the whole season.

  • Grazing hostein friesian cows

    Get your cows in-calf early to get ahead

    Maximise your herd’s reproductive performance, boost productivity and increase profitability by getting your cows in-calf early.

  • LIC bulls

    Bull buying and leasing checklist

    Before making your bull buying or leasing decisions, make sure the boys that you’re looking at tick off everything on this checklist to help ensure a successful natural mating period.

  • Farmer with calves

    Reproduction and the Indexes

    We often get questions along the lines of “Do high BW cows get in-calf well?”, “Can high producing cows still get in-calf well?”, and “Will making culling decisions based on indexes harm my herds mating results?”

  • Holstein friesian calves

    Take a year-round approach to reproduction

    Good reproductive performance comes down to how well you manage your animals throughout the season and across their lifetime.

  • Jersey cow looking at you

    Understanding gestation length

    Understanding a calf’s gestation length can be important for herd management practices such as spring feed budgeting.

  • Body condition scoring

    How to maintain BCS over summer

    Get your animals in the right shape for calving by starting your BCS strategy in early summer.

  • 2 Jersey cows

    What to do about non-cycling cows

    Learn how cows become non-cyclers, how to identify them and what you can do to reduce their numbers in your herd.

  • Calf shed

    Colostrum is the key to healthier calves

    Get the right amount of good quality colostrum into your calves and kickstart their long-term health.

  • Farmer petting cow

    Reproduction calendar

    Manage reproduction throughout the year – our Reproduction calendar helps you work out what to do, and when.

  • Jersey cow looking at you

    When to scan calculator

    Calculate when pregnancy tests needs to happen so you get early aged results with our 'When to scan’ calculator.

  • Cows in paddock grazing

    Calving pattern differences between reports

    As pregnancy data is starting to come in now, you might be starting to look at your results on the Fertility Focus Report and/or MINDA®LIVE.

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